What an eccentric thing is the sky

When at close of day it dances colours for my eyes.

What beauty folds itself in swaddling clouds

And wraps horizon in misted shrouds.

Where stars turn course, and gaily gleam,

Night creeps forth its shadowed seam.

Where on high the moon does glow,

Silent watchman, earth below.

All this beauty to reflect in one eye,

One indulgent moment I spy.

And my tarnished self whimpers,

Longs for the closure observed in the sky.

To be seamed into a life alive,

Fraught with such truthful beauty

As just one sunset, supple and blithe.

And there to rest, covered in cotton fog,

The sun slips softly away,

Gone to resurrect beauty in another’s eye.

While here I stand, open hand to clenched fist,

Grasping greedily after its wake

And closing only on night’s shade and mist.

Let me not continue in this night,

This wanton waste of saccharine light.

For these shadows that flit and fly,

In contempt of light, reflect too well

The grace I slight, my sins, my hell.

Where once transfixed I gazed

The very colours of God’s own eyes,

Now I stand in dark, suffering to see the rise

Of a new day.


Leave a Comment

Scroll to Top